When They Met Again
by maedayblake
Summary: It's been four months since the massacre at Mount Weather, but a chance meeting in the forest might bring Bellamy a little bit of peace. Based on some of the discussion from the Comic Con 2015 panel. To paraphrase Jason Rothenberg, I'll never shut down the question of eventual Bellarke.
1. Four Months

Four months with not a single sign of her. Four months of agonizing over letting her walk away. Four months of nightmares and hellish decisions; of his solitary voice to pierce and quiet the din of fear and uncertainty. Four months without Clarke.

Bellamy sat on the edge of his pallet in a tent made of deteriorating parachute sections. The rest of the camp had moved into the sanctuary of the ship's wreckage or had begun building real shelters, but he couldn't bring himself to be amongst them. To have a place amongst the people of the Ark was to admit he belonged with them, and that was not something Bellamy Blake was prepared to acknowledge. Not after what he had done. "After what _we_ did, together," he thought for the millionth time. Clarke had run because she couldn't bear to face her people, the survivors. Clarke, who had remained so strong for the 100, had finally broken. And in leaving, she had forced Bellamy to stay. Forced him to confront every terrible thing he had done. Her absence had taken away his choice. The remaining 44 couldn't lose both leaders and still survive. Not after all they'd been through.

Now, it was just him: a failed assassin ironically taking on a governing role similar to that of the man he had set out to kill so many months before. Such irony had to be the atonement for every unthinkable thing he had done on the ground. So, he did what he had to each day to keep them all safe and alive. Clarke had said she bore the burden so the Ark survivors wouldn't have to, but really, she had left the burden to him.

With a sigh, Bellamy stood and began to dress. On the early morning hours when the nightmares were too vivid or sleep evaded him entirely, he made a point to reconcile those thoughts by taking action. Tonight, he'd walk the perimeter of camp and reassess the wall for weaknesses. After all, the leader of the guard only had one purpose: the protection of his people.


	2. The Grounder

Clarke stumbled for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. She was clearly dehydrated and her rations had run out two days before when she'd gotten lost. The last stream she had come across contained mutated fish, and the prospect of radiation poisoning was enough of a deterrent to keep it from being a promising source for water or food. To make matters worse, she wasn't certain of which plants were dependable in this part of the woods, and her tromping footsteps seemed to scare off even the smallest game. If it would just rain, she could at least collect water, but the sky had seen fit to stay clear and blue for five days, so she was stuck. Her only hope now was to make it back to the Camp Jaha.

The thought immediately sent her pulse skittering as anxiety clutched at her lungs. Her head gave an aggressively hard spin from the rush of blood and adrenaline, and she was forced to stop and lean against a tree. She could not afford another panic attack if she was going to survive this trip. She pressed her hands hard against the rough bark of the tree in an attempt to ground herself and counted out three slow breaths. The usually calming effect of this frequently employed ritual now resulted in blurred vision. Damn this place, damn two-headed fish, and damn blue skies. She had to at least find shelter if she was going to pass out in the middle of a dark, unknown forest. Clarke steeled herself to move.

A sharp snap cut through the quiet of the night. Clarke froze, pressing closer to the tree. Without knowing where she was, she had no way of knowing if this grounder was friend or foe. It didn't bode well that whoever it was didn't fear the darkness enough to stay home.

Clarke reached for her knife. With any luck, the grounder wouldn't see her and would leave her to pass out in peace. If her shaking hands were any indication, she only had a few minutes before her body shut down. She listened, trying to train her ears to differentiate between the sounds of the night and the movements of a being, but the pounding of her pulse was drowning everything out. Her neck prickled with recognition. Her possible attacker was very close. Too close. Fueled by pure adrenaline, Clarke whipped around, knife raised. Her eyes searched blindly in the dark as a hand caught her wrist, slamming her arm against the tree and forcing her to drop the knife. The attacker shoved her back against the tree once more, exploding the breath from her gasping lungs and causing her head to bash the wood with stunning force. Spots burst into her vision and the fight left her body as she collapsed to the ground. Her last thought was of Bellamy.


	3. May We Meet Again

Bellamy jerked back as the grounder pitched forward toward him in a dead faint. At the last second he caught the grounder by the arm to prevent a debilitating fall. What the hell was this? He surveyed the area, sensing no one else nearby.

He squinted, reaching for the grounder's prone form to search for other weapons. He patted the body down recognizing a female form as he went. Thin, but certainly not weak if that last fight was any indication. He reached for her face, turning her head to catch the light of the moon, but the canopy was too thick. To the touch, her hair was short, raggedly cut, and filthy. In the gloom, he couldn't make out any dark markings or designs on her face, but in this part of the forest, she was likely one of Indra's warrior women. He'd have to tread carefully with this one if he wanted his very tentative truce to with Indra's people to continue.

The grounder woman groaned and shifted under his hands. Her eyelids fluttered slightly, but remained closed. "Water," she rasped. Fine. He wasn't about to start a war with Indra over one life. He pulled the water from his pack, tilting the woman's head toward the opening of the container. The moment the liquid touched her lips, she clutched tightly to his hand and gulped. "Whoa, whoa, easy," he admonished. "I can't have you drowning yourself right when I decide to save your miserable grounder life." His voice seemed to pacify her despite his words, so he continued talking as he lifted the water to her mouth again. "Slowly now, slowly." She took an unhurried drag from the canteen. "Good, that's good. Last one now." She swallowed again, coughing feebly as he set the container aside. "Now, if you could stay conscious long enough, we could have a chat about why you're on my territory without cause." He shifted her body up to rest her head against his forearm, propping his knee underneath them for support. She mumbled as he moved her. "What?" He leaned close, placing his ear near her mouth only to hear her teeth chatter. Even this close to the warmth of his body, she was beginning to shiver.

Bellamy sighed. The temperature had dropped during the night, and even with dawn coming in a few hours, he knew the forest would not heat up enough to ward off the chill. It would seem, he was about to add grounder savior to his job description. Lowering the woman back onto the forest floor, Bellamy rose and began to collect kindling for a fire. They had fought in an area open enough to build a decently sized blaze, so at least he wouldn't have to drag her body to a better location in addition to nursing her back to health. He snorted. If anyone had told him a few months ago that he'd be going out of his way to help a grounder, he probably would have punched them in their lying mouth.

Crouching down, Bellamy carefully piling the acquired kindling and dug in his pack for the flint. His mouth quirked in success as he fostered a flame with the first strike. He added a few small pieces of wood to stoke the fire before getting up to search for larger pieces. Luckily, it hadn't rained for a few days, and there were plenty of branches dry enough. He was wary enough lighting a fire, he didn't need smoke to further indicate his location to potential threats.

Bellamy glanced back across the fire to the woman he had fought. Was she part of a patrol? Was she a scout sent to observe the camp? They were going to have plenty to discuss when she regained consciousness. He noted the steady rise and fall of her chest and turned away to pick up another piece of wood as she began to mumble again. He hefted a log into his arms as her words became coherent.

"No... I killed them."

That gave him pause.

"…I bear it…"

A tremor shot down his spine as the words were exhaled with anguish.

"May we…"

Bellamy froze. He knew that voice. He knew that voice. Oh god, he knew—

"… Meet again."

The pile of wood crashed to the ground as his arms gave out.


	4. Princess

Clarke was reliving her final goodbye with Bellamy for the hundredth time. The moment never strayed far from her thoughts when she was awake, but the dreams were, at times, nearly unbearable: The haunted look in his eyes, the way her hands had shaken when she hugged him, the press of his hand in her hair. The worst part was coming, and even in her dream state, she dreaded the moment she would say the words. "May we meet again."

A loud crash sent Clarke's heart racing, jolting her lethargic form, and sending a wave of nausea through her system. She struggled to drag her body into a sitting position, but only managed to prop herself on one elbow as she blearily surveyed her surroundings. She was still in the forest, but a small fire had been built. She looked into the darkness trying to find some sign of the fire builder when she heard loud, gasping breaths to her left. Clarke snapped her head towards the sound, squinting through the light of the flames. There was a figure, tall and masculine, just on the other side of the fire. She knew that silhouette. She had dreamed about it every night for four long months, and it would seem that tonight's dream, tonight's nightmare, was the worst she had ever experienced.

The sob tore from her throat without warning, dragging the air from her lungs as the tears burned down her face. "No," she wept, curling in on herself, hugging her arms tightly around her knees. "No, please. I can't do this. I can't see _him_." Clarke didn't know who she was pleading with, but she was certain that she would do anything to make the pain wracking her body go away. She was being bombarded with too many memories to comprehend, and seeing him like this, outside of their final moment together, was more torturous than saying goodbye to him every night.

Hearing the woman's pain, Bellamy turned cautiously trying to calm the gasping breaths wrenching from somewhere too deep to identify. This had to be a trick. Something the grounders had cooked up to draw him in. _She_ was gone. She wasn't coming back. This woman was a fake. A hallucination. A ghost. She sobbed again, and the artificial grief of her voice sliced through him, shattering his already fragmented control. Treaty be damned. He was ending this game here and now.

He strode toward her, yanking the grounder woman up on to her feet as she cowered in his shadow. He shook her once, screaming, "Who are you? Who sent you here?" She choked out nonsense, begging him to end her misery. He shook her again harder. "Tell me who you are!" The fury in him rose. He had tried to save her, and she was toying with him. His grip tightened just as her head tipped back, firelight finally bathing her face. Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal pools of clear blue.

Bellamy's blood ran cold. This was no grounder, no ghost.

His legs began to tremble, the blood draining from his face. Bellamy gripped her as his fell to his knees panting. With a shaking hand, he brushed the dirty, blonde hair from her face, and allowed himself to whisper a word he had not uttered in 120 days. "Princess?"


	5. One Word

How could one word, one simple word, break and rebuild a person in an instant? "Princess?"

The forest crashed into silence as Clarke's entire being focused in on the trembling hand touching her face and the warmth of brown eyes scrutinizing her own. She couldn't breathe. Was it really him? Her fingers tightened into fists clutching crisp, clean material. Her voice clawed through raw vocal cords. "Are you real?"

Bellamy's breath huffed from his chest as a small smile split his face for the first time in months. He grasped her face in both hands. "I'm real, Clarke. I'm real."

So great was the wave of relief that crashed through Clarke's body that she had no other choice but to laugh. The sound shocked her as it burst from her chest in an explosion of air. And then, when her laughs gave way to weeping, Bellamy wrapped his arms around her just as he had that day in camp. His muscles tightened as his energy flowed through her, bolstering her up despite the longs months alone. Clarke clung to Bellamy with every bit of strength she had left, taking great, shuddering breaths.

Finally, when Clarke felt somewhat composed, she sniffed, and tilted her head back to finally allow herself to really see Bellamy Blake for the first time in four months. Firelight flickered across the contours of his jaw. His hair was shorter, maybe tamer. The lines around his mouth had deepened since she had last seen him. His eyes were wet with emotions she couldn't begin to decipher. He was Bellamy. He was the same man she'd lead with. And the same man she'd destroyed hundreds of lives with. He was the man she had left.

Her face fell, as realization hit her. She'd left him alone.

"Bellamy, I… I didn't want… I didn't mean to…"

He shook his head, understanding as he had so many times before what she was thinking.

"Not tonight, Clarke. We have a lot to say to each other, but not tonight. Tonight you need rest." She nodded numbly, grateful for the amnesty as bone-deep fatigue began sweeping through her again.

Bellamy stood, pulling her up with him. His arm was solid and reassuring, bracing her body as the world tilted dangerously before her eyes. Clarke grabbed his shoulder for balance, her knees shaking with the effort to support her weight. "I don't think I can walk any farther," she admitted quietly. As if to prove her point, her eyes rolled back and her body collapsed, pitching toward the forest floor. For the second time that evening, Bellamy caught her before she hit the dirt.

"It's alright, Princess. I have you," he rumbled as he swept her unconscious form against his chest. "I'm taking you home."


End file.
